Description
Book SynopsisThe Politics of Vietnamese Craft uncovers a little-known chapter in the history of American cultural diplomacy, in which Vietnamese craft production was encouraged and shaped by the US State Department as an object for consumption by middle class America.
Jennifer Way explores how American business and commerce, department stores, the art world and national museums variously guided the marketing and meanings of Vietnamese craft in order to advance American diplomatic and domestic interests. Conversely, American uses of Vietnamese craft provide an example of how the United States aimed to absorb post-colonial South Vietnam into the ''Free World'', in a Cold War context of American anxiety about communism spreading throughout Southeast Asia.
Way focuses in particular on the part played by the renowned American designer Russel Wright, contracted by the US International Cooperation Administration's aid programs for South Vietnam to survey the craft industry in Sout
